Upon Emptied Quivers and Flowing Capes
by Farewells
Summary: As Supergirl, Kara Zor-El sought to become a shining beacon of strength in a world lost of hope. She caught the attention of Oliver Queen, who retired as the Green Arrow since the destruction of his city and the deaths of his friends. Honoring the promise he once made with her cousin, he reluctantly took her under his wing, training her to become the hero he once was.


**A/n:** Seeing how bright and cheerful Kara is, I couldn't help but to imagine a wonderful relationship between her and an older, way more cynical Oliver. Losing everything he once held dear, Oliver no longer sees the world with the same light, something that Kara might help him overcome, reminding him of the reasons he once fought for.

It'll be something of a developing relationship in a mentoring story.

I needed to change around the timelines and events of the show in order for my story to work. Here's a summary in short.

 **Year 2000:**  
-18 year old Oliver Queen was shipwrecked on an uncharted island after his ship went down in a heavy storm.

 **Year 2004:**  
-22 year old Oliver Queen returns from his mysterious death and starts his one man vigilantism crusade.

 **Year 2010:**  
-Fort Rozz, the high security Kryptonian prison, escaped from the Phantom Zone and crashed onto Earth, releasing thousands of dangerous inmates.  
-It brought along 18 year old Kara Zor-El, who was found comatose in her crashed spaceship.  
-28 year old Oliver Queen accepts Superman's invitation to join the Justice League, spending years battling the newest threat.

 **End of year 2013:**  
-After three years of warfare that swept across the globe and decimated entire cities such as Starling, Superman sacrificed himself in order to send all the remaining prisoners back into the phantom zone.  
-With many of the heroes dead, the Justice League was no more. With his family and his loved ones gone, his city destroyed, 31 year old Oliver Queen hung up his mantle and retired as the Green Arrow.  
-21 year old Kara Zor-El wakes from her coma upon the apparent death of her cousin. She was adopted by the ones he tasked with helping her learn her abilities and settling into her newest home.

 **Year 2019:**  
-27 year old Kara Zor-El starts her crusade as Supergirl, becoming a beacon of hope in a world without heroes.  
-Oliver Queen have not been seen in years.

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 **Chapter: 1**

 **Year: 2019**

The unending darkness came at her from all corners, a suffocating presence that sought to swallow her whole. Like the tentacles of an unseen monster, it grasped at the edge of her extremities, constricting against her flailing efforts to break free. As though sensing her growing fear, the darkness surged forward in abandon, engulfing more of her resisting form, threatening to entirely devour her. It bounded her with a chilling starkness, and even with all of her strength, she was unable to pry free.

For a moment, she couldn't breath. And in the next, Kara Zor-El broke free from her petrifying nightmares, her chest heaving as she struggled to inhale, her hands ripping apart the bed sheets that were wrapped around her lithe form. The sounds of tearing fabric brought her back into reality, as she realized that the demons were only figments of her dreams. Exhaustedly falling back onto her bed, she pressed her palm against her forehead, it came back covered with perspiration. The sheets underneath her were soaked.

It was a most peculiar sensation. Her body was fundamentally different from an average human's physiology, and with her added strength from the sun, Kara didn't sweat, at least not due to either heat or physical exertion. This was something else entirely.

Pulling herself up from the bed, she headed into the bathroom of her tiny apartment, stopping n front of the mirror. Her eyes were bloodshot, her blonde locks a clumpy wet mess. Her fingers were trembling, and for some reason or another, she lacked the composure to still them.

It wasn't as simple as a mere nightmare. She recognized the darkness, a place she was lost to for three years following her arrival on Earth. She wasn't entirely gone during her comatose state, parts of her still remained, helplessly so, as her sanity slowly dissipated with each passing day.

Turning the tap on, she paused for a long moment, her eyes closed, her breathing slowed. She honed in on her alien strength, her ability to see, to hear and to sense beyond the limits of ordinary perception. Kara felt the environment coming alive around her, the slight tremoring of her walls, her neighbor's loud bass music that was causing so. She could hear the distant rumbling of outside traffic, could see the individual droplets of flowing water in front of her.

She focused onto the water itself, trying to block out everything else around her. When first exposed to the sun, she was entirely overwhelmed by her foreign perceptions, everything was so loud, so overbearingly painful. The adoptive parents that her cousin instructed to take care of her, they quickly taught her how to control her strengths, the ability to keep calm by focusing onto only a single object. It allowed her to block out the pain, to learn better control of her strengths.

Yet as she concentrated onto the stream of falling water, there was something else, a faint whisper that she was unable to ignore. Panicked footsteps, heavy breathing, a cry for help. It was distant, a faint echo, but she heard it clear as day.

Kara Zor-el did not hesitate, she ran towards the windows, pulling them apart and ignoring the blast of cold night time air. She placed a foot onto the ledge, and in the next, she flew into the night sky, a tiny dot that soon faded amongst the stars.

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Less than a minute later, she landed in the midst of a deserted alleyway. Between overturned bins and scrambling rats, she was alone in the darkened alley. But it was impossible, she knew exactly what she heard, the unmistakable cry for help. She tuned in to her senses, reaching outwards when she came across an unusual buzz. The sound of static above a natural frequency. She followed the buzzing towards its source, pushing over a dumpster and finding a circular object on the floor.

She picked it up, it resembled a Bluetooth speaker.

 _"Help me! Help!"_

In that instance, a surge of adrenaline flushed through her, she dropped the speaker as it started to play the sounds of fading footsteps. It was a trap, someone wanted her to be here. Her eyes burrowed into the darkness, scanning for any hidden assailants, but there were none. She was still left undisturbed, the alleyway remained peaceful, albeit dirty.

There was nothing in the darkened streets ahead, and as she looked up, there it was. A heartbeat, faint, obscured, but it was there.

She focused onto the unseen figure, and as she took a step in his direction, she heard the sudden tautness of a pulled string. She braced herself, as the air in front of her was momentarily sliced apart. Two fast moving objects shot in her direction, but with her enhanced speed and perception, they felt almost slow. She dodged the first, allowing it to smash harmlessly against the walls behind her. She caught the second in mid-flight, bringing it to a sudden halt inches away from the symbol cross her chest.

She opened her grip, it was an arrow.

Kara almost laughed in relief, was she hunted by a Neanderthal caveman? Following the arrow's trajectory in the direction of the above balconies, another whistling in the air signaled the impending arrival of another projectile. Kara glided into the air with ease, effortlessly catching the next arrow with equal ease.

This time however, as she gripped down onto the arrow, a scathing heat tore instantly throughout her entire arm. She yelped in surprised pain, dropping the object as a reddened scar crossed her palm from where she caught the green tipped projectile.

She bled from the wound, an unfamiliar sight The impact sent her reeling through the air, unprepared as the next sliced into her from behind, penetrating in between her shoulder blades. Unlike the bullets that would bounce harmlessly off her skin, the arrowhead tore through fabric and into flesh, an expanding surge of agony from their point of impact. It swelled from her wound, tearing through her limbs, consuming her with an overwhelming frailness, as though all of her strength evaporated from her body.

She painfully crashed back down onto the dirtied floors below, cracking the cement and painfully aware of her heightened sensations. Reaching behind her, she gripped onto the arrow's shaft, gritting her teeth and painfully crying out as she pulled it from her flesh. Studying the weapon, it was unlike the first two. A green jade-like tip, compared to the metallic ends of a normal one. She felt sickly even by holding the weapon near.

There was little Kara Zor-El could do but to scream as the next two slammed into her, sending her crashing back into the dumpsters, as her remaining strength was immediately drained out of her.

The last thing she saw before unconsciousness consumed her, was a hooded figure descending from the roofs above.

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As his boots landed heavily into a murky alleyway puddle, the hooded figure could not help but to feel a profound sense of deja-vu. The events that just transpired, mirrored his first meeting all those years ago with the man of steel. Her cousin at least, was much more prepared than she was. When realizing that his opponent was using kryptonite tipped arrows, Superman flew into the skies without hesitation, taking use of their distance and burning away every single one of his remaining arrows before engaging him without fear.

The girl however, it would seem that she lacked experience. He walked towards her, studying the fallen female. A younger version of her remained fresh in his mind, peacefully sleeping in her hospital bed, unconscious for the years he had visited. She was older now, her hair was grown out longer, but she was similar in almost every way to the slumbering Kara in his memories. As innocent and as guileless as she was.

He pulled the arrows out from her flesh, ignoring the spurting wounds. As long as the kryptonite was out of her system, she would heal in no time. Hoisting the unconscious female up onto his shoulders, he headed in the direction of an abandoned warehouse.

They were long overdue for a talk.

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End file.
